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USYers Assure Kaddish is Said for Weiss Family for 11 Months

January 9, 201822 Tevet, 5778

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One of the most well-known
prayers in our tradition is the Kaddish, an ancient expression of praise
of God originally recited after learning or sermons (later it was added to
prayer services to mark the conclusion of major section of the experience).

In the 13th century Kaddish
became associated with mourning as a response to the German Jewish community’s
severe persecution by the Crusaders. In
the face of loss, when human beings naturally question faith with “Where is
God?” or “Why has God done this?” our tradition comforts us and urges us to
re-declare our faith in God and hope in the establishment of God’s sovereignty
on earth.

The custom of reciting Kaddish
for 12 months following the burial of a parent is traced to a midrash of
Rabbi Akiva who “rescued a soul from punishment in hell by urging the latter’s
son” to recite it. (EJ 1972) Today, taking a more optimistic view of
parents’ piety we recite Kaddish for 11 months. When mourning the loss of a child or spouse
the halakhah is 30 days (a reason for this distinction is that one may
have more than one child or spouse, but one can only have one parent).

Typically, we are of the mind
that one should not recite Kaddish for people for whom one does not have
a halakhic requirement to do so.
We have special days for those for whom there is no one to say Kaddish,
such as Yom Hashoah or Yom Hazikaron and, on days of Yizkor,
we recite the prayer for all our departed.
Yet, there are moments that impact us so deeply that we feel compelled
to accept an obligation that we otherwise would not have. The heartbreaking loss on New Year’s Eve of
the four members of the Weiss family, zichronam livracha, is such a
moment.

Why? We believe it is for
the tragic manner in which they died, the loss of beautiful lives filled with
potential never to be realized and the fact that for most of Hannah and Ari’s
peers, this is their first confrontation with mortality of someone their age.

That’s why it is so beautiful to
see our USYers starting a document to
assure that someone in our community recite Kaddish for Hannah and Ari
and their parents Mitchell and Leslie for 11 months.

This effort to sustain a year of Kaddish
for this amazing family will allow us in the Jewish community to engage in
serious discussion about the precarious nature of life and the power of healing
through mourning. Saying Kaddish for a deceased individual is a
catalyst for the bringing of merit and honor to the memory of a loved one.
These four precious souls are deserving of the merit that comes from the
recitation of Kaddish on their behalf.

There is halakhic
precedence for accepting an obligation for a mitzvah she-ayno mechuyav, for
which one is not obligated. That our
USYers, as a community, are leading us in assuming this mitzvah is a
beautiful act of love and redemption.